I remember liking that South Park episode too, though I’ve sort of distanced myself from that show as I get older because of shit like “Manbearpig.” Their Cher parody was very funny. The Cher song really is from 1998, though.

I think “Mambo No. 5” was on that list too, I never liked it at all, a very annoying party song.

One thing I remember about Sugar Ray is Mark McGrath was NOT one of the most mocked or despised pop stars of his time. I remember him actually getting a lot of respect from people outside his genre even, and people saying he was a cool guy with a sense of humor? Am I remembering this right?

I hate myself for looking this up, but Wikipedia (can’t trust them, right? Right, Matt?) the “…Baby One More Time” video was shot in August 1998; Britney Spears, born December 1981, was 16, not 17, and the schoolgirl outfit was her own idea. I would say the outfit looks sort of chintzy and that the ugly grey wool kneesocks ruin it, but the real creepy thing isn’t the legs or her midriff or whatever, but just…just…Britney’s face. Just 16 years old and she’s already in the uncanny valley. I’ve commented when comparing her to Taylor Swift that Taylor has lasted 20 years now without a serious public fuckup so much as once because Taylor has been PG-13 at the most the entire time, whereas Britney was basically a porn star within a fourth of that, but GOOD LORD HER FACE. It looks so innocent, so sugary sweet, so concocted and dolled up by a bunch of marketing people and Britney herself, that she breaks into the Uncanny Valley and doesn’t even really look like a real person, but like something AI came up with (if AI had been around in 1998!) to dream up “the most sickeningly sexy underage girl ever.” And now that she’s 45 and I don’t know any of her music since like 2008 and only know about that incident where she had to be locked in her room under her conservatorship or what, seeing how sickeningly cute she was doesn’t just Uncanny Valley-me out, but makes me weirdly sad. I know George reviewed her catalogue and spent like the first three paragraphs of the review for this album talking about what she looked like on the album cover…but he’s right.

I dislike the Santana song too, but I remember any negative feedback it got being directed at boring ol’ Rob Thomas (another generic name!) and not Carlos Santana. Ask Joe; he’ll be glad to detail the entire sordid history of Carlos Santana trying to latch onto trends and “sell out” all the way back to like the late 70s! It’s true, isn’t it! Joe, are you reading this?

Neil Cicierega’s best work was “Space Monkey Mafia” or “Avril.”